Modular Accessory Interface

There are parts of the follow project that I cannot talk about. I have done my best to showcase the work I specifically did for this project and have excluded some details.

Depth Sensing Drill & Basic Premise

The initial idea of a modular interface for powertools stemmed from two different projects. One of those project was a depth-sensing drill prototype I had developed. To achieve this, there were a lot of expensive additional electronics that would need to be added to the tool. Which, to someone who would benefit from the additional functionality, might be worth the extra cost for the tool. However for everyone else, all this means is that they are paying more for a drill with a feature they will never use.

Conceptually, this is a problem that Ryobi runs into with a lot of tools given that they try to design tools for both beginners and tool experts. Beginners aren't going to want to spend significantly more for tools that have features they're unlikely to use or performance they are unlikely to hit. Whereas expers and professionals aren't going to buy tools that are too feature and performance stripped. That's where the idea of a modular accessory interface for powertools came from:

Develop a universal geometry for Ryobi that allows users to customize and augment their tools for their specific needs. Allowing them to adapt their tools for their use case or skill level.

Accessory Interface Prototype v1

Motor Driver

For ease of programming, I decided to use a brushed motor and motor driver for this prototype

Arduino Pro Mini 5V

Using a small microcontroller for code while still being able to fit in housing

Pogo Pin Contacts

The pogo pin connectors allow for communication between accesories and the tool

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The drill was designed using parts from the Ryobi P215. For ease of prototyping, the thought was adding an Arduino Pro Mini (5V variant) and motor driver to quickly simulate a brushless tool with a motor controller and the included functionality of communication over data pins. This concept makes more sense on brushless tools as they already contain PCBs for driving the motor.
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The interface to receive accessories was placed on the side of the battery foot. The thinking here was that the battery foot is a fairly standardized geometry, so it would be easy to translate to additional tools. Four pogo pins are located at the end of the “rail” that supply power, ground, and bidirectional communication.

In additonal to the drill, I worked on a series of powered and non powered accessories:

Magnetic Parts Tray

Carpenter's Pencil Holder

Bit Bar

Bubble Level

Universal Accessory Dev Board

On the accessory side I built a standardized accessory dev board that could be used in some different scenarios. This board housed an Arduino Pro Mini (5V variant), 3 buttons, a potentiometer, and pinouts connected to various pins to add things such as a display.
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A standard 3D printed accessory was also developed to house the dev board.

Max Speed Adjustment

Using the potentiometer on the accessory, you can adjust the speed of the drill when the trigger is fully pressed, meaning that the tool remaps the whole trigger.

Brighter Light

Having a panel of multiple LEDs allow for greater lighting in areas which may be hard to see.

Depth Sensing & Cutoff

This accessory adds functionality over the depth sensing drill prototype by allowing the user to set a target depth. When the tool reaches the target depth it will shut off, meaning you cannot drill any deeper.

Tool Lockout

Using a Bluetooth-enabled Feather board, we built a quick prototype that would connect to your phone and allow you to “lock” the tool, meaning that pulling the trigger wouldn’t engage the motor until unlocked.

Initial Research

In the initial round of 4 interviews, users were shown all powered & non-powered accessories. In the second round of 5 interviews, users were shown only the top non-powered accessories: bit bar, level, and magnetic tray. 

Module Brainstorm

A brainstorm was held within the team I work on of different accessories that could make sense:

I wanted to quickly highlight my mentality when I was thinking about modules for the different tools. I first started framing this idea similar to a hot shoe on a camera—having an attachment point on the camera for items like a larger flash or radio remote. These are additions that are vital for some applications, but for many people, they won’t ever be used because the camera itself is enough to fill their needs. The same idea should be applied to this accessory interface. I’m not suggesting the remove the standard LED from the tool or make it so that you cannot change the orbital action on a jigsaw without installing a module to save cost on the bare tool. Rather, creating different modules that can take a tool from something designed to be everything a beginner would need, to a tool that meets the user at their current skill level. Tailored to provide a better experience for the types of tasks they’re likely to do. With that I think that all the ideas regarding moving existing features to the interface are not good ideas.

Prototype v2

Goal

Explore the concept of a front-mounted accessory. Focus on the form and interaction of connecting the accessory to the tool.

Why

Without taking the prototype further on the functional side — as we can communicate that with the first product—this lets us push the form further to give users a better representation of what a final version could feel like. This also gives us the opportunity to see where this concept could fail when implemented in an actual product.

What I Focused On

What Was Less Important

Rev 1

This was the initial design for the front interface. This utilizes a spring clip on the accessory that locks into a tab on the bottom of the foot; meaning that to remove an accessory the battery must be removed to push the clip with your fingers.

Rev 2

Rev 2 fixes some of the issues with the original version. For starters, it was hard to unlock and remove the accessories on the original version. To fix this a larger button is now used and I changed to having a dedicated button with a track to follow and spring. The accessories in Rev 2 are also larger than the original; being both wider and longer. In this current version the front on the accessory is being used by the button so electronics cannot fill the whole footprint. Three different sizes of accessories were also designed: a standard size that follows the contour of the foot, an extended height size that bumps upwards, and a panel size designed to house a series of LEDs.

Rev 3

Rev 3 was made to show a semi-functional version of the front-accessory concept. It has pogo pins on the front of the housing that are connected to the led pins in the PBLDD01 PCBA and an accompanying LED module, meaning that you can attach/remove a working LED module. With how it’s made though, this is the only accessory that would work.
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Other minor changes were made to make this version easier to build and less likely to break. The foot was updated to have a central floor that is captured by the housing. This was implemented to reduce the likelihood that the plastic in front of the lock port would break. The accessories have also gone back to a plastic spring clip built-into the bottom housing.